The city of Brookfield's tornado warning sirens will go silent after this year.

The Common Council voted Tuesday night to shut them down after they decided that a federally-mandated update was too expensive.

Advertisement

Officials said there are other alternatives.

"I question what their usefulness is in today's world," Brookfield Fire Chief Charlie Myers said. "With all of the technology that we have, whether it's your cellphone, whether it's your television, whether it's some other way to get information, I question whether or not the sirens actually notify a large number of people."

Myers said the sirens were really a Cold War air raid relic. He said he still expected some people would be against the cutback.

Long-time Brookfield resident Mark Seiler isn't one of them.

"In this case, fine. What good have they ever done? Have they ever saved your life?" Seiler said.

Those in favor of silencing the sirens said cellphone text alerts and more aggressive broadcast coverage of severe weather alerts has made them mostly obsolete.

Carol Abramoff agrees.

"I think with the Internet connections and so on that maybe the air raids are out of date," Abramoff said.

The city of Brookfield has 11 of the sirens, and all of the radio transmitters and receivers would have to be upgraded by FCC mandate at a cost of $100,000.

Kevin McCaffery is glad taxpayer dollars will be saved.

"That's quite a bit of money, and now we're trying to massage the bottom line I think is what the boys say," McCaffery said.

People will still hear those sirens sound this year in Brookfield and in many communities across southeast Wisconsin during severe weather awareness week. It's scheduled for the week of April 16 with drill day on April 19.